In the ever-chang­ing me­dia land­scape, we strive to up­hold the time-ho­n­oured tenets of re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism: ac­cu­ra­cy, fair­ness, im­par­tial­i­ty, in­tegri­ty, pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty and re­spect for our au­di­ence.

Our con­tract with our au­di­ence re­quires keen at­ten­tion to de­tail, rig­or­ous ver­i­fi­ca­tion of facts, use of cred­i­ble sources and sound ed­i­to­r­i­al judge­ment.

Ed­i­to­r­i­al em­ploy­ees and free­lance jour­nal­ists work­ing with the news­room are re­quired to fol­low the guide­lines out­lined in this doc­u­ment.

i. Agen­da Set­ting

In ad­di­tion to re­port­ing ag­gres­sive­ly, we must be pre­pared to set the agen­da and push the bound­aries of na­tion­al dis­course when this is in the pub­lic in­ter­est.

ii. Er­rors

We strive as­sid­u­ous­ly to be ac­cu­rate. When we fall short, our Cor­rec­tions Pol­i­cy clear­ly out­lines how we will cor­rect the record.

iii. Con­flict of in­ter­est

Con­flict of in­ter­est will in­vari­ably arise. To keep faith with our au­di­ence, GML is ob­lig­at­ed to dis­close con­flicts of in­ter­est or any po­ten­tial con­flicts to avoid any ap­pear­ance of bias

iv. No Po­lit­i­cal Align­ment

As an in­de­pen­dent me­dia house, GML and our jour­nal­ists shall not be aligned with any po­lit­i­cal par­ty or ac­tivist groups. We are du­ty-bound to en­sure di­ver­si­ty of views and po­si­tions.

We will strive to en­sure that our re­porters do not dis­play gen­der, racial or ge­o­graph­ic bias and that our pub­li­ca­tions and broad­casts fos­ter fair­ness and de­fend democ­ra­cy in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

We will de­fend ed­i­to­r­i­al in­de­pen­dence in our news­room. Our pub­li­ca­tions and broad­casts will con­form to es­tab­lished jour­nal­is­tic stan­dards and be guid­ed by our in­ter­nal style rules.

We will al­so op­er­ate in ac­cor­dance with a Code of Ethics that pro­tects the con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of sources.

v. Ac­cu­ra­cy

An ac­cu­rate sto­ry is one in which all rel­e­vant facts are re­port­ed.

To meet this stan­dard, re­porters and ed­i­tors must ver­i­fy the de­tails in their sto­ries to en­sure that they are fac­tu­al, non-defam­a­to­ry and not li­belous.

vi. Bal­ance and Fair­ness

All re­porters and ed­i­tors must meet the stan­dard of re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism and must prac­tice neu­tral­i­ty and bal­ance in the cov­er­age of all sto­ries.

Jour­nal­ists must con­tact all par­ties in­volved in a mat­ter for on-the-record in­ter­views to be able to present all sides and must ac­quire doc­u­men­ta­tion to sup­port any ar­gu­ments raised in the re­port.

Jour­nal­ists must seek to ver­i­fy in­for­ma­tion through mul­ti­ple sources and must at­tribute all on-record in­for­ma­tion to the of­fi­cial sources.

Jour­nal­ists must en­sure that in­ter­vie­wees are aware that they will be record­ed and agree to be pub­lished ‘on the record’. In­ter­vie­wees may not be aware that Guardian Me­dia op­er­ates as a mul­ti-me­dia plat­form and, there­fore, may not know that a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view will al­so be con­vert­ed in­to a print sto­ry.

In the in­ter­est of fair­ness, all in­di­vid­u­als or en­ti­ties in­volved in a sto­ry, and those against whom al­le­ga­tions are be­ing made, must be giv­en a chance to com­ment in a rea­son­able time­frame be­fore pub­li­ca­tion or broad­cast. Where com­ments have not been re­ceived, we shall clear­ly in­form our au­di­ence of the ef­forts un­der­tak­en to ob­tain their com­ments.

If ob­tain­ing a com­ment is not pos­si­ble by our pub­lish­ing and broad­cast­ing dead­lines, and if a sto­ry can­not be held, sub­jects in the sto­ry must be con­tact­ed ex­pe­di­tious­ly and giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­ment in any fol­low-up sto­ry, which will be pub­lished at the first op­por­tu­ni­ty.

If af­ter our best ef­forts, ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion sur­faces that con­tra­dict a pub­lished sto­ry, those facts shall al­so be re­port­ed ex­pe­di­tious­ly.

At all times, jour­nal­ists must seek to deal pro­fes­sion­al­ly with sen­si­tive mat­ters in­volv­ing chil­dren, vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, rape, crime, mi­grant/hu­man traf­fick­ing ac­tiv­i­ty, sus­pect­ed ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ty, LGBTQI+ is­sues, etc., in­clud­ing en­sur­ing to pro­tect the iden­ti­ties of the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved un­less oth­er­wise spec­i­fied by them or, in the case of mi­nors, a par­ent/guardian.

Opin­ions and com­men­taries must be iden­ti­fied as such to be dis­tin­guished from news sto­ries.

vii. In­ter­view­ing and News­gath­er­ing

We will avoid un­der­cov­er or oth­er sur­rep­ti­tious meth­ods of gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion un­less, af­ter all ef­forts, the tra­di­tion­al, open meth­ods do not yield in­for­ma­tion vi­tal to the pub­lic in­ter­est.

Pri­or to con­duct­ing an in­ter­view, jour­nal­ists must prop­er­ly iden­ti­fy them­selves as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Guardian Me­dia seek­ing an in­ter­view/com­ment on an in­ci­dent. It is un­ac­cept­able to at­tain in­for­ma­tion/in­ter­views by pre­tend­ing to be some­one else.

vi­ii. Anonymi­ty

Our jour­nal­ists will en­cour­age all sources to get on the record to pro­tect the cred­i­bil­i­ty of our sto­ries.

Un­named sources will be on­ly used as a last re­sort and must have the ap­proval of the lead ed­i­tor. We will re­serve anonymi­ty for sources who may face dan­ger, ret­ri­bu­tion or oth­er harm, have in­for­ma­tion that can­not be ob­tained else­where, and ex­plain to our au­di­ences why we grant­ed anonymi­ty.

When a re­quest for anonymi­ty is made, we will con­sid­er the mo­tives of our sources be­fore mak­ing any promis­es. We will pro­vide rea­sons for the anonymi­ty.

We will ex­plain as best as we can, who the source is with­out nam­ing them, for eg, “a Cab­i­net mem­ber” or “an ex­ec­u­tive di­rect­ly linked to the agree­ment”.

We will ex­plain how we got the in­for­ma­tion from the un­named source, such as by email, by a phone call, or by an in-per­son dis­cus­sion, to help read­ers bet­ter un­der­stand and trust how the sto­ry was put to­geth­er.

ix. Good Taste

There are some things the pub­lic has a right to know but may not wish to learn from Guardian Me­dia:

Ex­plic­it and graph­ic de­scrip­tions or im­ages of nu­di­ty or vi­o­lent crimes such as mur­der and sex­u­al of­fences, ac­ci­den­tal deaths and sui­cide, will not be pub­lished.

We will not use lan­guage to ridicule or high­light some­one’s ap­pear­ance, re­li­gious be­liefs, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, or phys­i­cal and men­tal ca­pa­bil­i­ties to cause of­fence.

When this is un­clear, the jour­nal­ist must seek con­sent from the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor.

The “break­fast test” may be use­ful in de­cid­ing whether or not to use a sto­ry or pho­to­graph. We will ask our­selves if what we are pub­lish­ing is some­thing you would wish to see in your pa­per while eat­ing break­fast the fol­low­ing day.

x. Pro­fes­sion­al­ism

Jour­nal­ists shall en­sure that their man­ner of dress, con­duct and com­mu­ni­ca­tion are ap­pro­pri­ate to the oc­ca­sion. When in doubt, they must con­sult the ed­i­tor.

CODE OF ETHICS

The ex­ter­nal ac­tiv­i­ties of in­di­vid­u­als in­volved in cre­at­ing or pre­sent­ing con­tent for Guardian Me­dia can pose risks to the news­room’s rep­u­ta­tion. These ac­tiv­i­ties may raise ques­tions about our im­par­tial­i­ty and in­de­pen­dence, po­ten­tial­ly un­der­min­ing our com­mit­ment to jour­nal­is­tic in­tegri­ty.

It is es­sen­tial that man­agers, con­tent pro­duc­ers and on-air tal­ent do not com­pro­mise their own in­tegri­ty, as well as the in­tegri­ty of GML by avoid­ing in­ap­pro­pri­ate or com­pet­ing en­gage­ments and com­mer­cial in­ter­ests out­side of work.

a. Per­son­al in­ter­ests

Our pri­vate be­hav­iour, as well as our pro­fes­sion­al be­hav­iour, must not dis­cred­it GML's rep­u­ta­tion. Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must ad­here to the terms of the Ed­i­to­r­i­al Pol­i­cy, their em­ploy­ment con­tracts and oth­er GML and ANSA McAl poli­cies on eth­i­cal be­hav­iour.

b. Ex­pres­sions of Opin­ion

GML ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must be mind­ful that the opin­ions they ex­press may dam­age GML's rep­u­ta­tion as an un­bi­ased source of news. They must re­frain from de­clar­ing their views on con­tentious is­sues in pub­lic fo­rums, blogs, so­cial net­works, com­ments pages, pe­ti­tions, bumper stick­ers or oth­er­wise. They must not take part in demon­stra­tions in sup­port of caus­es or move­ments or con­tribute to them with­out the per­mis­sion of the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor.

c. Po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests

Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff are ex­pect­ed to be scrupu­lous in avoid­ing any par­tic­i­pa­tion in po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, whether they cov­er pol­i­tics reg­u­lar­ly or not. They may not run for po­lit­i­cal of­fice or ac­cept po­lit­i­cal ap­point­ments, nor may they per­form pub­lic re­la­tions work for politi­cians or their groups. Un­der no cir­cum­stances must they do­nate mon­ey to po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions or po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns. They must use great dis­cre­tion in join­ing or mak­ing con­tri­bu­tions to oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions that may take po­lit­i­cal stands. The Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor must be in­formed in writ­ing when a spouse or oth­er close mem­bers of an em­ploy­ee's house­hold have any on­go­ing in­volve­ment in po­lit­i­cal caus­es, ei­ther pro­fes­sion­al­ly or per­son­al­ly.

d. Gifts & fi­nan­cial pay­ments

Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must not ac­cept pay­ments — ei­ther hon­o­raria or ex­pens­es — from gov­ern­ments, gov­ern­ment-fund­ed or­ga­ni­za­tions, groups of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, po­lit­i­cal groups or or­gan­i­sa­tions or from any­one that he or she cov­ers. Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must not ac­cept gifts or free ser­vices from in­di­vid­u­als, com­pa­nies, trade as­so­ci­a­tions or or­gan­i­sa­tions. Items of no re­al val­ue, for ex­am­ple, pens and note­books, can be ac­cept­ed. When in doubt about the val­ue, ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must con­sult the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor.

e. At­ten­dance at hol­i­day par­ties

GML ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must re­frain from at­tend­ing hol­i­day par­ties host­ed by gov­ern­ment agen­cies, po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties and busi­ness­es when they are not di­rect­ly cov­er­ing the event or us­ing it to gath­er in­for­ma­tion for a news sto­ry.

f. Busi­ness re­port­ing

Jour­nal­ists who reg­u­lar­ly write or ed­it busi­ness news must de­clare to the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor if they own stock or have any per­son­al fi­nan­cial in­vest­ment or in­volve­ment with any com­pa­ny, en­ter­prise or in­dus­try that they reg­u­lar­ly cov­er. The Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor may de­ter­mine if it is nec­es­sary to at­tach a foot­note to an ar­ti­cle, de­clar­ing the jour­nal­ist’s in­ter­est in the sto­ry be­ing re­port­ed on.

g. Sport re­port­ing

Jour­nal­ists who re­port on sports must not hold po­si­tions with­in na­tion­al or in­ter­na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions and must de­clare to the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor any fi­nan­cial or per­son­al in­volve­ment in a team, en­ter­prise or in­dus­try that they reg­u­lar­ly cov­er. The Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor may de­ter­mine if it is nec­es­sary to at­tach a foot­note to an ar­ti­cle, de­clar­ing the jour­nal­ist’s in­ter­est in the sto­ry be­ing re­port­ed on.

h. Depth of dis­clo­sure

Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must make every ef­fort to en­sure that no spouse or oth­er mem­ber of their house­hold has in­vest­ment or busi­ness in­ter­ests that could pose a con­flict of in­ter­est. Un­avoid­able cas­es must be de­clared to the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor. Such con­flicts could dis­qual­i­fy em­ploy­ees from cer­tain as­sign­ments.

i. Favours

Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must not ask news sources or oth­ers they meet in a pro­fes­sion­al ca­pac­i­ty to ex­tend jobs or oth­er ben­e­fits to any­one. They al­so must not of­fer ben­e­fits de­rived from be­ing a GML em­ploy­ee to news sources.

j. Meals

Staff may ac­cept a meal of­fered dur­ing cov­er­age of a work as­sign­ment but must im­me­di­ate­ly ad­vise the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor if any com­pro­mis­ing re­quests are made dur­ing any such event. News­room staff must not ac­cept din­ner in­vi­ta­tions from busi­ness of­fi­cials, gov­ern­ment-fund­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions, groups of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, po­lit­i­cal groups, sport­ing agen­cies or or­gan­i­sa­tions that take po­si­tions on con­tro­ver­sial is­sues that are not meant for cov­er­age.

k. Dis­counts

GML ed­i­to­r­i­al staff may ac­cept dis­counts from com­pa­nies on­ly if those dis­counts are stan­dard and of­fered to oth­er cus­tomers.

l. Free tick­ets

GML ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must not re­quest free tick­ets to sports, en­ter­tain­ment or oth­er events for any­thing oth­er than cov­er­age pur­pos­es.

m. Ad­ver­tis­ing

In the in­ter­est of im­par­tial­i­ty, GML ed­i­to­r­i­al staff must not un­der­take ad­ver­tis­ing, pro­mo­tions or en­dorse­ments for third par­ties.

n. Pub­lic speak­ing en­gage­ments

Pub­lic speak­ing en­gage­ments and oth­er pub­lic ap­pear­ances, such as chair­ing or speak­ing at con­fer­ences must on­ly be ac­cept­ed if they do not com­pro­mise the au­thor­i­ty, im­par­tial­i­ty or in­tegri­ty of pre­sen­ters or ed­i­to­r­i­al staff. These com­mit­ments must not sug­gest en­dorse­ment of any prod­uct or ser­vice nor im­ply sup­port for any or­gan­i­sa­tion. The Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor must be con­sult­ed be­fore ac­cept­ing any out­side en­gage­ments.

o. Me­dia Ed­u­ca­tion

Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff may speak or teach at the in­vi­ta­tion of news in­dus­try groups and at ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions with the ap­proval of the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor. GML staffers may ac­cept hon­o­raria, with the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor's ap­proval, for such ap­pear­ances. We do not nor­mal­ly ac­cept hon­o­raria for rou­tine speech­es and pan­el dis­cus­sions.

p. Me­dia ap­pear­ances

Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff may ap­pear on oth­er ra­dio and TV news pro­grammes as pan­el­lists ask­ing ques­tions of news­mak­ers once ap­proved by the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor.

q. Sport com­men­tary

In some cas­es, pre­sen­ters may be con­tract­ed for a short pe­ri­od to com­men­tate or host a spe­cif­ic tour­na­ment af­ter seek­ing per­mis­sion from the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor. When such per­mis­sion is grant­ed, care must be tak­en to en­sure it con­forms to the guide­lines con­tained in this doc­u­ment.

r. En­ter­tain­ment videos/con­tent

Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff may be asked at times to ap­pear in mu­sic videos, movies, plays, or oth­er en­ter­tain­ment con­tent. The Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor must ap­prove ap­pear­ances, par­tic­u­lar­ly when such roles are in line with their po­si­tions at GML e.g. a re­porter or pre­sen­ter. Such ap­pear­ance must be in good taste and must not con­tain lan­guage that can put GML in dis­re­pute.

s. Char­i­ties and cam­paign work

Any pro­pos­al by ed­i­to­r­i­al staff to work for or be pub­licly as­so­ci­at­ed with char­i­ties and cam­paign­ing groups must be re­ferred to the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor. Spe­cial care must be tak­en with in­vi­ta­tions to take part in pub­lic ap­pear­ances, to speak pub­licly, or to chair char­i­ta­ble events, so that no im­pres­sion is giv­en of GML's en­dorse­ment of one char­i­ty over an­oth­er.

t. Non-GML free­lance work

Ed­i­to­r­i­al staff who seek to en­gage in non-GML free­lance work must first re­ceive pri­or writ­ten ap­proval from the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor.

• Free­lance work must not rep­re­sent a con­flict of in­ter­est for ei­ther the ed­i­to­r­i­al staff mem­ber or GML and must be out­side of their work hours.

• Staff who wish to use ma­te­r­i­al they ac­cu­mu­late in their GML work - notes, sto­ries, im­ages, video, graph­ics - for us­es oth­er than by GML must seek pri­or writ­ten ap­proval and copy­right clear­ance.

Ex­pens­es that arise from non-free­lance work will not be the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of GML.

u. Writ­ing Books

GML ed­i­to­r­i­al staff re­quire pri­or writ­ten ap­proval from the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor to pub­lish a book on any top­ic. The Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor must con­sid­er the sen­si­tiv­i­ties in that area and whether the book could give rise to a con­flict of in­ter­est or raise con­cerns about the in­tegri­ty or im­par­tial­i­ty of the GML.

v. Train­ing & fel­low­ship ap­provals

Em­bassies, high com­mis­sions, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, cor­po­rate en­ti­ties or oth­er bod­ies that wish to spon­sor GML staff to par­tic­i­pate in train­ing cours­es, fel­low­ships, sem­i­nars and oth­er pro­grammes, lo­cal­ly or abroad, must first get the ap­proval of the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor. GML ed­i­to­r­i­al staff are dis­cour­aged from reg­is­ter­ing for such ac­tiv­i­ties with­out first get­ting the ap­proval of the Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor to do so. Par­tic­i­pa­tion must con­form to the guide­lines con­tained in this doc­u­ment.